Silence
by CallMeCas
Summary: Bella unable to deal with the pain of losing the love of her life commits suicide. 75 years later the Cullen family returns to Forks and are met with an impossible situation.


Silence. It's deafening, the silence I mean. It's so out of place. So painful I feel as though it alone, the silence could kill me. It's not supposed to me quiet here. It's supposed to be filled with laughter varying from light and tinkling to heavy and booming. It's supposed to be warm even though it doesn't need to be. There should be light. There should be furniture making every surface comfortable and just perfect for each and every room. There should be at least two boys on the couch fighting over a video game playfully growling. There should be a mother warning them about their language and telling them to use inside voices. There should be two sisters chatting excitedly about clothing or cars. One of them should be my best friend telling me that a t-shirt and jeans is unacceptable. I should be arguing that I am comfortable this way. Then a doctor and a father, a leader, should walk through the door after a long day of work kissing the mother telling her how he's missed her during his day at work then greeting the others he considers children including me. All of this is important but of course the pain that I feel the searing white hot tearing ripping bleeding the hole in my chest is the absence of the cold arms wrapped around me, the absence of a cold kiss on my cheek sweet nothings being whispered into my ear. The absence of him, all of them it's too much to bear. The silence makes it worse it makes everything hurt more. The silence makes me feel heavy like it's a weight all falling onto me at once. I fall to the now cold wood floors under this weight. There is no sound other than my labored breathing and my numbered heart beats that mock me echoing through the empty house that used to hold my family, their love for me, and my undying love for them despite everything. I looked up to see that it's still there. The instrument that had made me cry tears of absolute joy because his fingers weaved me a perfect song to define our love. But it too is silent at it will be forever because he is gone and he is not coming back.

I drag myself to it because we both were left behind like garbage and forgotten forced to live in this now cold and barren place where we cannot live nor die. I intend to fix that but he might come back for the piano. It was his favorite in all the homes he's lived in, his little baby grand, he said it was special. So I won't harm the piano, I would never hurt anything he loves.

He doesn't love me.

He left me.

I am nothing.

He knows I am nothing.

He is gone. Forever.

I pull the sheet off it though and drag my fingers along the piano's smooth black skin. How he could leave behind something so beautiful something that is clearly so perfect I would never understand. Maybe it would hinder him from finding his distractions. That makes me sad because it shouldn't go to waste. Maybe he's replaced it. Maybe he's replaced everything he had here. Maybe he's replaced me already.

I sigh and turn away from the piano to the staircase and I make myself walk up it despite the fact that I know it will hurt. My heels click against the steps another sound that doesn't belong. I'm only wearing them because I know that if she ever found out I did this and what I was wearing she would be proud of me. She gave me these a long time ago or at least it feels that way. She gave me the dress too and I never wore it for her to see it's white and stops just below my knee it's lacy with thin stain straps and a sweet heart neckline with an empire waistline. She would be proud that I knew all that, the stuff about the neckline and the waistline though I might be getting it wrong. Still I feel bad. I wish she could see me now. I even practiced in the shoes and the dress so when I walked in here it would be perfect in case she got a vision of my decision. I think she would be proud. I think she would love me more like this with my hair done up with the products I usually left unused in the bathroom and with the little bit of make-up I could put on without messing it up. She would love me more. Maybe if I had been this way all the time she wouldn't have left me.

The silence weighs heavier on the second floor. I would give a lung for some sound, some evidence that my family was still there. But there is no sound only silence only the click of my heel against the floor reminding me that I am alone.

I go to my second parent's room first. When the police find me, as they eventually will, I hope they won't take what I leave in here. There isn't any furniture left in here so instead I loosen a floor board and place the item under there. I repeat this placing a different item under each floorboard for every couple that used to live here every couple that should have been my future family.

Finally I reach the last room. And the door it closed. I'm scared to see what will be inside. I'm unsure what would be the worst thing to see. On the one had seeing his room untouched and perfect as it always was with all his CDs and records on the walls would be a good image to have a safe final image where I could easily remember all of the wonderful things that had happened in his room from the start to the end. However the still perfection would make me think that nothing he had here had really mattered to him. That in his mind I was a distraction. I was temporary. Everything here had been temporary and despite what he told me it was not important. But to see it empty like the other rooms it would remind me that every material object in there was more important than I was. It was more special to him than I was. The things he'd bought were worth more than me. They were worth holding on to no matter what.

I take a breath and open the door. It's not what I expected.

Everything is broken. And I do mean everything. Every CD every piece of technology every piece of furniture is broken smashed to pieces like I am. Maybe that's just something he does. He likes to break things. I shake away the bad thought. He just breaks things he doesn't care about. That's why the piano is still in one piece because it's important he cares for it.

I walk through the mess some of the things I see are unidentifiable. I look around and pull up a floor board carefully placing the item under it and leaving it slightly unsettled for him to find. No one but his kind will notice the disturbance.

Unable to look at his room anymore I leave shutting the door behind me.

I considered carrying out my act in his room the place we had spent so much time together falling more and more in love with one another or at least I had fallen more in love with him but I couldn't bear the thought of being another broken thing in his room that he didn't want anymore. So I return downstairs and to the piano.

I pull the last item from my bag and it feels heavy in my hands the metal is cold and it makes me nervous. I drop my bag next to me and wonder if Alice will be angry that I will dirty her dress beyond repair. I hope she's not mad and understands that I just wanted to die the way she would want me to look.

I unlock the safety on the gun because with my luck I would have shot myself in the leg with it on the way here. Maybe if I had been more graceful he would have loved me more. Women from his time were supposed to have grace weren't they? Maybe that's where I'd slipped up.

I press my hand to the cold surface of the piano and take a deep breath then as I press the cold barrel of the gun to my chest right where my heart beats I say my last words.

_I love you, Edward, forever. _

The gun shot shattered the silence and my already broken heart like Edward did when he left.

My mind presented me with a question: Did he love me now?

I heard the thump of my body hitting the ground up right looking at the quickly spreading pool of blood surrounding the body.

I step away and suddenly all my thoughts are jumbled and confused. I don't know anything suddenly and for a moment I see my memories disappearing from in front of me. I see flashes of faces before they disappear. Words that must mean something to me shoot through my mind. Some of them are names. Charlie, Renee, Phil. I know they are names because they come with faces. But then they are gone and I can't recall the information.

I looked down and there was a girl she was bleeding out so quickly I wasn't sure if I could have helped even if I knew how. I reached down and pressed my hand to her arm but instead of feeling her skin my hand passed right through her.

Gasping I jumped back. My hand brushed against the dress I was wearing without problem. Then I noticed that she and I were wearing the same outfits. Was she me? But… I didn't remember I couldn't understand.

As I was trying to understand that I might be dead people burst through the door a large man dressed in blue with dark curly hair and brown eyes ran to the girl on the floor.

"No!" he cried out. "No, Bella, no please no, not my Bella!" HE was screaming and weeping his face was red. I wanted to comfort him. His grief rang somewhere deep within me. I leaned down to where he was now cradling the girl against his chest trying to support her weight as her head fell back blood slipping out between her lips. I touched his shoulder but my hand passed through him too he shuddered. Looking in my direction but not really seeing me.

"Officer?" I said hoping he heard me. I assumed by his outfit that he was a police officer. He didn't respond to me. I don't think he even hurt me.

More people came into the room telling him they had to look at the scene and that they had to get the girl out of here. I screamed wanting someone to help me someone to explain why we looked so alike the girl and me but no one would listen to me or even look at me. People would walk right through me and do nothing but shiver.

"It looks like suicide." One person said to the man that had come in first. They were speaking softly carefully.

"I know its suicide." He whispered. "I knew I shouldn't have… she shouldn't have been alone. I should have taken her to the hospital as soon as it happened I should have done something!" His voice got louder as he went.

"Charlie don't do that to yourself. No one knew what Bella was planning." I wondered if that was my name too. It sounded pretty. Bella. "It couldn't have been helped. She wouldn't have been any happier in a hospital."

"Yes but at least she wouldn't have been dead!" Charlie snapped. "She wouldn't have been dead." He whispered again. "I didn't think that she would do that. He was just a boy. I thought she'd get over it. I mean I knew she loved him I could see that but to… to kill herself? I just don't understand."

"I know, Charlie, I know."

Suddenly I couldn't listen anymore. I knew what I needed to. I was that dead girl. The girl was dead because she'd… I mean I'd killed myself over someone I loved. Someone that hurt me.

I sat by the piano where my body had been until everyone left and I was alone and the silence was oddly familiar. Then sitting next to me was a bronze haired boy who I knew I loved. He smiled at me and brushed his hand over my cheek. Then he stood and went to the door which he pulled open with ease. "Good-bye Bella." He said quietly.

"No!" I rushed after him and out the door but I hit a wall before I could run after him into the forest. I pounded against the invisible shield keeping me looked inside. Then I screamed and cried begging him to return to me.

And he did every day in the dead of night only to leave me again ripping my heart out over and over till it was nothing.

_75 years later September 16__th__ Forks, Washington – Edward Cullen _

As I drive my Volvo down out long driveway I let myself think back to the times when she was here. Back when the love of my existence sat next to me holding my hand on the console smiling up at me with such love in her eyes for me it made me melt. I know it's no longer possible she's gone. She would be 93 years old if she's still alive which knowing Bella she still is but she isn't here anymore Alice made sure and she is no longer living in Forks. I hope she moved somewhere warm. I think she would have liked Florida or California or Hawaii even. I bet she went to school for some sort of English major. I wondered if she had become a teacher like she wanted to. I wondered who she'd married and how many kids she'd had if she'd had any. She always said she didn't want to but I imagine with the right man she changed her mind and had beautiful little babies that grew up to be as perfect as she was. I hoped she lived a good healthy life no illnesses or anything like that. I knew that Charlie had died a while ago he'd been shot and I knew how hard that must have been on her. I knew how close they were even if they didn't express that it was in their every thought. I almost came back to make sure she was okay but I knew that if I'd done that then I wouldn't have been able to leave her again. It killed me to think that she could be very upset somewhere and I couldn't comfort her. It made me mad that someone could be comforting her even though I knew I shouldn't because it was what I wanted for her. I wanted for her to have someone.

I pulled up to the front of the all too familiar house and turned to look at the passenger seat half expecting to see her sitting there but the seat was empty just like I was. Jasper and Alice were in the back seat Alice was talking excitedly about their room she was going to decorate with Esme's help. I didn't need to be an empath to know that Alice was just putting up a cheery front. She was as unhappy to be there as I was. It was painful. But we had the best life here it was always cloudy with very little sunny days it was good for us and though it was difficult for me I forced myself to look on the bright side which was that my family would be happy here and have a much longer span of time living in one place assuming all went well.

While the others exited their cars I found myself gripping my steering wheel tighter afraid and unwilling to go inside. I'd put my head against the wheel between my two tightened fists when the knock on the window came.

I looked up to see Alice smiling face she motioned for me to roll down the window. I sighed but did as she asked. "It'll be okay Edward," she assured me. "I know it seems bleak now but I think that Bella would want us to come back here if it was best for us."

I sighed knowing in a way she was right. My selfless Bella would want what was best which was why I had come back from my extended separation from my family. When I had heard how much pain they were in it seemed only right to do right by the only people I could do right by since doing anything good at all for the woman of my dreams was impossible I would do the next best thing.

I nodded and pulled myself out of the car getting my bag from the passenger seat. We hadn't brought much with us instead choosing to donate our clothes and furniture and other material items to the needy and buying new things at local businesses.

Jasper was waiting for Alice in the doorway and she skipped over to him leaving me walking towards the now daunting house alone. Finally I gathered the strength to enter and joined everyone in the foyer.

Immediately I was overcome by memories of my one and only love all the good times and bad we had shared here. I shut my eyes willing the painful thoughts down.

"Hey," Emmett said suddenly sniffing the air like a dog. "That's weird. It almost smells like…"

Alice cut him off but it was too late I'd already seen it in his mind. He thought that house still smelt of Bella. It was so much worse looking at Bella through his mind because his thoughts were not tinted with sadness and regret. Though Emmett had loved Bella as though she were his own blood he felt that he shouldn't look back on his memories of her as bad things that upset him but rather a good time in his everlasting life that was now over. It was almost silly, to him at least, to have regrets or to imagine what if. It was pointless to change. He could only move forward and while he would never forget Bella he wouldn't linger over her memory.

He was remembering a day when he had been particularly thirsty and Bella had been there. That day he had taken more notice of her scent than any other day it was so much more potent since he was a so thirsty. She had come sat right next to him that day taken one look into his eyes and said, "Whoops sorry Em I hope I didn't make it worse." Then she'd made her way over to me and asked me to take her home so Emmett could be comfortable. At first I thought she'd been afraid he would attack her but Jasper had told me he'd never felt ay fear from her and she told me that she was simply worried about Emmett.

I took a deep breath inhaling the dusty air and I smelt what Emmett had.

"Bella?" I whispered.

Esme sighed. "Perhaps she visited after we left the scent is old and weak it could be a relative of her maybe a daughter or…" she trailed off seeing that the thought of Bella being with some other man ad having his children bothered me even though I knew damn well it shouldn't.

"That's odd." Carlisle said kneeling by the piano.

It was faint it looked as though someone had tried to wipe it away many times but it was very clearly a blood stain and it smelled of Bella.

"Oh Bella." I muttered. "Oh Bella." I said a little louder.

"Oh Edward!" a voice sighs from behind me.

I turn and I see her. Just as she was when we left beautiful and pale with her big brown eyes and long lashes. She's smiling widely running skipping jumping towards me down the steps and across the room.

"I knew you'd come back I knew you would you always do don't leave!" she cried her words running together quickly.

I can't even find the words to respond because suddenly she'd in my arms and I can feel her. She's so cold for some reason but I don't think about it much as I lift her off the ground and pull her to me as tightly as I can.

"Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella," it's all I can say and I whisper it in her ear over and over and over.

"Bella!" Alice cried. I could see in everyone's minds how shocked and confused they were about how Bella could be here and how she could be the exact same way she was before.

Bella pulled back from me and smiled at Alice. She sighed looking at my sister with an expression that was somewhere between longing and confused. "I haven't seen you in so long Alice. You're so beautiful."'

Alice smiled and made her way over to Bella and me since I still had my arm around her and refused to let go.

"Thank you Bella you look wonderful too." Alice said taking Bella's hands.

"Do you really think so Alice?" She said excitedly. "I picked this out just for you it's the dress you gave me and look I'm wearing high heels you love that Alice. You love it when I dress properly."

"You look wonderful." Alice assured her.

Bella made this happy humming noise and asked, "do you love me now Alice?"

"I've always loved you."

Bella looked away but nodded coming closer to me.

Carlisle pulled himself together enough to interrupt. "Bella it's good to see you." Bella tipped her head to the side looking confused again but then nodded slightly not answering him vocally. "If you don't mind my asking what happened here?" He glanced towards the stain on the hardwood floors and Bella sighed.

"A girl tried to kill herself here. I watched her do it. She fell and she was covered in blood and then the police came and there was a man crying saying rocking her even though she was dead." She told us emotionlessly.

"Here I'll show you what happened." She insisted. Suddenly she wasn't next to me anymore she was by the computer her heel clad feet in the center of the pool of blood. "She was leaning against the piano just like this," she demonstrated as she narrated the actions. "Then she pulled out a gun," Bella herself pulled a gun from who knows where and placed her finger on the trigger.

"Stop Bella." I told her.

"Don't worry Edward." She told me and Alice grabbed my arm holding me back.

"Wait to see how this turns out."

"You want me to let her shoot herself?" I whispered back incredulously.

"Look at her Edward really look."

And that was the first time I did. My Bella, my perfect sweet Bella was covered in blood and dirt her veins were clearly visible under her pale skin her bones sticking out she looked so thin it was as though she hadn't eaten in weeks. I didn't know what it was but there was something very wrong with my love.

"She put it to her chest." Bella continued placing the barrel of her own gun to her heart. "And she said, 'I love you Edward' then she just shot herself." Then to my absolute horror my Bella shot herself dead falling to the ground her dark colored blood spilling out over the stain.

I screamed. I ran towards her intent on saving her not planning to let her go ever again. When I finally reached her she turned her head towards me and said "do you love me now?" And then she died.


End file.
